


At Great Cost

by vojir



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:23:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vojir/pseuds/vojir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>just like. kirk's thought process when he's in the core reactor saving everyone like the stupid beautiful martyr he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Great Cost

The radiation didn’t feel like how he expected. He didn’t have a lot of time for expectations, granted, but it wasn’t as hot in there as he’d thought it would be. From what Scotty had said, and from what he knew about radiation poisoning (standard Starfleet safety regs that boiled down to DON’T UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GO INTO THE CORE CHAMBER) he knew he’d be throwing up but the fatigue was what hit him like a hammer.

Not that he wasn’t tired before. He was exhausted. He was so fucking DONE with not knowing what to do and making decisions that nobody seemed to like and he was so ANGRY at himself for screwing up so bad that everyone on HIS SHIP was in danger of dying. It was almost a relief to have a definite goal. A fix. And if that fix involved his death, well. Apparently he was his father’s son after all.

The light of the active core was such a bright blue it seared his vision, so he had to start crawling without a real sense of direction. Crawl a few feet, puke, crawl some more, puke some more. It got to the point where he was just dry heaving because his body had even run out of bile for him to cough up. All he could think about through the haze of pain and satisfaction (he’d done it, he’d saved them) was that he didn’t want to be alone when he died.

He didn’t feel much, really, until Spock showed up. Scotty couldn’t look at him and nobody else had sprinted down yet. It was just Spock. He couldn’t think of another soul he’d rather die next to.

So he said it. He said the one thing he thought he’d never be able to admit to another human being (though Spock is only half-human, so maybe it doesn’t really count). But he still said it out loud, after an entire lifetime of pushing it aside or stamping it out or doing something stupid and reckless despite of -- no, because of -- it.

“I’m scared, Spock.”

And Spock understood. And Kirk died trying his damnedest to give Spock one more of his characteristic, easy, cocky-as-shit grins.

Spock Prime’s words echoed hollowly in Spock’s ears. “At great cost,” he’d said. Spock pounded his fist against the glass. It wasn’t worth it.

It wasn’t worth it.

Khan would pay.

**Author's Note:**

> i have way too much fun with this shit


End file.
